First there was the cultural cringe and then the horticultural cringe. Until the 1960s the content of most Australian gardens consisted mainly of plants from the UK, or anywhere else but Australia. That began to turn around in the 1960s. This discussion asks what is an appropriate Australian landscape garden? A bush garden? A multicultural, a Republican or an indigenous garden? Why does Floriade persist and why is it so popular?

Michael Bates, landscape designer, (now head of Bates Landscape), Dr Helen Armstrong, now Professor Emeritus in Landscape Architecture, QUT, and David Tacey, now Associate Professor of English at La Trobe University and prolific author.